inflatable repairs back in the day

[jeffstevens763@g]

i dug these pics out over the weekend it was back in 1982 when we worked in the coal mines there were about six of us worked together on a district fitters, machine drivers etc all with a new passion for diving we had been shore diving but found a need to go further. we didn't have much money to throw around so anything was a possibility and we were offered this boat, the price was a ton of coal, surrender value at that time was £6.00 [sell back to the coal board]so there we were with a boat well more like a sack bag that's was how bad it was, just looked like a hessian finish on the tubes, no floor just what you see very sorry state.so we got the pump out and blew her up well she wouldn't stay up at all a few minuets a most.
first task was to buy the internal sealing liquid one for each compartment and throw it around on my lawn easy task for us big lads we threw steel girders around all day for a living.
when it had dried we blew her up again 100% improvement she would stay up most of the day.
my mate Ronnie who's farther in-law worked at northern rubber in Redford got us loads of silicon paint with a good clean and hours of painting we ended up with a boat that stayed up.
next job was to build a floor since we were going to trailer her it would be a one piece floor it was never intended to plain with her as we couldn't afford the engine at that time,so another mate Brian who was a bit of an artist measured up and drew out the floor on a sheet of ply wood, it fitted first time like a glove so varnished it and that was it boat finished.
our first trip out was from a little bay near ravenscar whitby[boggle hole] with a 3 hp Gemini engine on the back loaded with 6 divers off we went the vis was poor due to a ground swell but we had a dive anyway.
we used it for a couple of seasons got a 10 hp for it she would plain then but you needed a wave to go down first and that was it until we could afford a better boat. looking back and with all my experience now we were mad to go out in it but we had some great fun with her and the re-build was a challenge.

cheers